'Reality Bites' in guardian 6th feb issue

The big brother racial discrimination controversy has snowballed into an uproar, touching a very raw nerve in multicultural UK. Jade Goody’s eviction by a massive 82% votes shows that her public image has received a massive thrashing, and even though she has been trying to retrieve her public image by interviews and her latest will to visit India it would take some time before the people hurt by her comments would forgive her for the act.
But is the problem Jade or is the issue bigger than just her?
From New York to England, France, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Wales, India, South Africa and Scotland, racism is a reality which we live in and each one of us faces it in some form or the other , just that the protagonist’s keep changing with changing regions. Celebrity big brother has shown us a mirror to what we very proudly and sometimes arrogantly call as a ‘civilized society’.
New York, we are told, is the melting pot of the world and America, the land of opportunity.
Many Americans would like to believe they are a nation that has built its superpower status by throwing its borders and arms open to the immigrants of the world. But is it the case?

In November, Michael Richards, the man who could do no wrong as Kramer in the Emmy award winning Seinfeld, shocked his fans by bursting into a lengthy, racist rant after being heckled by a black audience member during a stand-up comedy performance in LA.

The verbal attack continued for about three minutes. "Throw him out. He's a nigger. He is a Nigger. Look, there's a nigger," he said.

Richards later apologised, but the damage was done.

In Great Britain the word 'Welsh'(meaning the natives of the country of Wales)is Anglo saxon in origin, It's meaning is 'foreigner', So to this day long after the anglo saxons invaded these small islands which belonged to the Celtic tribes, the natives inhabitants are still called 'foreigners' in a dead language in there ancestral homeland. This is very interesting to see where Britsh racism began ,and how this mentality about racial differences manifested itself later in Ireland Scotland and then the vast empire.


As far as India is concerned, it is fighting a battle with herself to move beyond an ugly past. The temples have caste barriers, homes have separate glasses for the men and women who mop our floors and clean our bathrooms, all men who grow beards and wear skull caps may be terrorists, treat the North-east like a separate country comprising people who affectionately call 'chinkis', and when it comes to finding brides for the sons, it is insisted that fair is lovely. Outside India, put all brown folk into one room, and they will even set aside their differences to whisper in snide bewilderment about the ringlet-haired black people whom many of us still call Negroes.
The fact that we have stopped respecting each other is evident throughout the world, Some where on the surface and at some places below the carpet but its existence cannot be ignored.

Now, to the television show itself. Industry insiders will concede (if you catch them drunk) that there is nothing quite as contrived as reality TV. Essentially it's all about human conflict so masterfully manipulated that it looks spontaneous, instead of staged. But think about it — what is natural about locking up a disparate bunch of men and women (usually, has-been starlets or wannabe stars) in an enclosed space and allowing them no contact with the outside world?

It's a show designed for dysfunctional dynamics. And as we all have a sneaking suspicion, even the participants are acutely aware of the need to perform. After all, the longer they get to stay on in the 'house', the more money they make. We, the television viewers, are the masters of their fate, and they can never forget that they are always on stage. It's almost like a striptease artist on display for a voyeur she can't see, but one who not just watches her all the time, but pays her bills as well.
And here's the fascinating bit — when one of the abuses was blipped out on television, everyone thought Shilpa had been called a 'Paki'; actually she had been called a c***. But once that was revealed, no one made too much fuss about it. Why? If this is about ideology, is racism that much worse than sexism? Is being called a 'dog' (which she was) somehow more acceptable than being called an 'Indian'? Whether we like it or not, this is the sort of grossness that apparently makes reality TV both repulsive and rivetting; but it's a baseness innate to the very idea of the show.
Musicians like Birmingham-born Apache Indian (otherwise known as Steven Kapoor) warn against the trivialisation of the racism debate. He writes about leaving England for India since he could not feel at home there. He talks about how "stani" is the latest slur in town, reserved for immigrants from Afghanistan, Pakistan and 'Hindustan'. Nobody paid him extra money for his pains


Racism is serious business. Cheap television is simply good business.
Let's not forget that distinction.

And instead of playing Peeping Toms on some banal television show, let's turn an eye inward . Then, we may find a real reason to be angry